(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telephones provided with information storage capability and more particularly relates to technology that facilitates input/output of information.
(2) Description of the Related Art
It often happens that a phone user makes a call and cannot get through to a person at the other end, and that later, when the phone user tries to make a call to the same person or receives a call from the person, he/she cannot remember what he/she was going to tell by the original call.
To avoid such inconvenience, the user may take countermeasures to take information for the subject when the phone call cannot get through, and then refer to the information for telling the party the subject without omission when calling back or receiving a call from the party.
However, whether or not the user takes such a countermeasure depends on the user's willpower. Unless the user has a strong will power to take such a counter measure, it would be difficult to take the counter measure constantly. Thus, it is hard to say such a countermeasure as a measure for everyone to easily take.
Additionally, in the case where wireless telephones (hereafter called “mobile stations”) such as mobile phones and the Personal Handyphone System (PHS) are used in the open air, it makes difficult to take the above-mentioned countermeasure, because the user might not carry writing materials or it takes some time to have writing materials ready.
In the open air that imposes these various constraints on the caller, in order to inform the party of information to be conveyed without omission, a user of a mobile station may use a text editing function such as electronic mail (hereafter called “e-mail”) which is provided for the mobile station. This enables the user to record sentences on the information to be conveyed as text data, read out the recorded sentences immediately before calling back to the party, and reconfirm the subject.
Note here that, in the case that the party has a personal computer having access to the Internet connections or a mobile station equipped with the e-mail function, the user can simply transmit the above recorded e-mail to the party. However, even though personal computers and mobile phones recently spring into wide use, the ownership rate of normal wired telephones is still more than that of these devices. Therefore, it can be considered that there still remains many cases which require the above-mentioned countermeasure for taking notes, for instance, when making a phone call to the party who possesses a normal telephone only or when the caller has to directly talk with the party.
In such a case, however, the caller has to remember recording the sentences. Further, if the caller suddenly receives a call from the party even when remembering taking notes for the party, the caller has to confirm the contents of the recorded sentences by performing manipulations with buttons during a conversation with the party. Since such manipulations interrupt the conversation, it is hard to regard such a measure to take notes using the text editing function as a realistic one.
In this way, with any of the above-mentioned measures, the user cannot easily convey the information to the party without omission.